Greater consciousness, transcendence, the divine – call it what you will, it is all around us, all the time. We can connect to this incredible experience of super connectedness, of joy, love and the great oneness that unifies everything whenever we choose. But only if we learn how. According to Michael Pollan’s book How to…
Tag: meditation
Teleporting
Walking to the subway in a fug of thought – planning three steps ahead, I realised I was oblivious to my surrounds and could have been anywhere. I wondered what I would notice if these were my last moments and pop! the street came alive. I noticed the patter of rain drops on my face and I…
Meditation – Am I Doing It Right?
I’ve meditated for 15 years. I used to wonder; ‘Am I doing it right?’ And ‘What is the purpose?’ My first instructor was a Buddhist. ‘Emptiness is the goal,’ she said. That felt wrong to me. It felt like I was trying to rid myself of myself During my very first attempt at meditating I…
The Reset Button
Wow. January was a bummer. It felt flat, colorless as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of my life. I am not a depressive sort. At first I wondered if Laura had upped and left after 3 years. Her time was up and she was gone. I felt suddenly bereft and alone….
Yoga
Laura loves yoga. Or rather Laura loves coming to tickle me during yoga class. Yesterday I found myself giggling out loud after Laura wrapped herself around me as I was getting ready to do ‘boat pose’. It was a bit like that scene in the movie Ghost where Patrick Swayze’s ‘departed’ character comes up behind…
Marry Me!
Laura’s back! I was reading a book in bed last night and each time I read the phrase ‘Marry me’ (twice) the huge floor lamp in the bedroom went crazy flashing. ‘Oh Laura!’ I giggled. It made my heart leap. She hasn’t flashed the lamps in months. Possibly because I haven’t meditated in months (oops)….
In Praise of the Monkey Mind
I feel very conflicted when I hear meditators diss our chatter box left-brain, or ‘monkey mind’. Sure our right brain is the place of oneness, unity and selfless serenity. It’s the goody two shoes side of us, the saint, the sufi, the place of silence and repose. In other words, it is our spiritual side….
Vipassana
A decade ago, I saw The Dhamma Brothers documentary about how a group of ultra violent prisoners in Alabama came to terms with what they had done (most had committed murder) by doing Vipassana. It is an extreme meditation practice where you sit in silence for 10 days straight. It acts like a spiritual car wash and…
Butterfly Tickles
Laura has been very busy this week from what I can tell. In case you missed the post in comments, Laura popped up in a dream and tickled our good friend Toni and her partner Jill until Toni was speechless and wriggling on the floor feeling, ‘bathed in a million lights and laughing gas’. Laura…
Home again
‘I’m free. And I’m going back home, back to where I belong,’ our friend Fatima sang at Laura’s memorial. She was channelling what Laura would say to us from the after life if she could. In Michael Newton’s book Journey of Souls, people use the exact same language to describe how they feel after leaving…
Lessons from Eva Zeisel
My dear friend Eva Zeisel, who died age 105, nearly didn’t make it past her 30s. She was arrested in Russia in 1936 on suspicion of plotting to kill Stalin and thrown into prison for several years (including 1 year in solitary confinement). While Eva’s fellow inmates went mad or committed suicide, she survived by…
Meditation and Cancer
Gregory Colbert Laura – I started meditating at the age of 17 with Transcendental Meditation. I would sit in bed repeating my mantra and fall asleep. So much for meditation. Over the years I would try to connect with a Higher Power, the Universe, whatever you want to call it but always had a hard…
Soul Love Forever 